Chapter 366: Shining Destiny, Sunflower, Winning It All

The next day, the first ray of sunlight fell beside the pillow.

The little girl’s thick eyelashes fluttered as she rubbed her tender face against the pillow, sleepily hugged the blanket, but felt something softer.

It didn’t feel like her mom’s waist; it felt like a fluffy animal. The sensation reminded her of Sister Xie’s huge dog, but this one was much smaller.

Chu Wang Shu’s awareness gradually woke up. She recalled whether she had left the stuffed toy her mom bought on the bed, but feeling the soft movement in her arms, she suddenly thought, “The neighbor’s cat must have sneaked into my room.”

The girl shook off her sleepiness, her eyelids struggled to open. She sat up, wanting to send the mischievous “cat” back to the neighbor’s house, but when she lifted the blanket, she saw a magical creature that shouldn’t exist in reality.

This creature looked a little bigger than a kitten; its round eyes were golden, subtly marked with a sunflower pattern, and its cloud-like tail was pure white and soft, swaying gently, with magical patterns of sun and hearts, as if a golden woven ring was wrapped around its tail, moving along with it.

Though it didn’t look like a cat or a dog, it was a magical little animal that was indeed very cute, sitting adorably in Chu Wang Shu’s arms, tilting its head, its eyes filled with innocent wonder.

“Meow?”

Chu Wang Shu was enchanted; she couldn’t help but pick up the little creature, rubbing her face against its fluffy tail and happily pinching its ears, her eyes sparkling like stars as she exclaimed:

“Wow, are you my Lantern Elf? That’s amazing! So super cute! Are you a dog? Or a cat? Hmm~ you don’t look like either; could you be a fox?”

“Never mind, anyway, you are just as lovely as Mom’s forget-me-nots and Sister Little Yu’s violets. Let’s be good friends!”

The Lantern Elf tilted its head and cheerfully chirped “Cheep,” bumping into Chu Wang Shu’s arms and happily wagging its tail.

The lovely daughter felt a deep connection with the creature, gently stroking the gemstone ribbon (Artificial Lantern) given by her mom. After thinking for a while, she declared seriously:

“I’ve decided, your name will be Sunflower!”

After Chu Wang Shu finished speaking, without waiting for the newly born Lantern Elf to respond, she excitedly scooped up the little creature, not even taking time to put on her slippers, and ran barefoot into the living room. She looked at her very helpful father and her cuddly mother, proudly holding up the Sunflower and announcing:

“Dad, Mom, look! I have a fairy too!”

Charlotte was the first to come close to her daughter. With her jewel-like deep blue eyes lowered, she curiously poked the round face of the Sunflower and then glanced at the chaotic mystical circle, wondering aloud:

“Cutness is very lovely, but Little Shu, why does your fairy have a magic ring? Is there something special about it?”

“I don’t know, but it should help with casting spells, right?”

Chu Wang Shu thought for a moment and decided to sit on the sofa with Charlotte. They both played with the Sunflower’s tail while pondering this deep question.

Not far away, Chu Yuanqing had just walked out of the kitchen. Her pure white hair was braided to the side, and her delicate yet slightly innocent face shone with an enticing warmth in the morning light.

The girl casually untied her apron and looked up.

Lantern Elf?

Chu Yuanqing glanced at the seemingly harmless Sunflower, and her instincts stirred deep within her soul. For a moment, her golden eyes glimmered with fierce anger, like a fiery planet of roses, burning with violent intent.

In that instant, the twelve sets of genetic sequences slowly stirring within the “Son of Mankind” fell into silence, as the intertwined powers erased all traces of cause and effect, existence, breath, and marks, allowing the three remaining branches of magic to shine brightly and cover everything.

In fact, time truly seemed to rewind for a moment.

The fire in the Pure White Witch’s eyes did not burn, but returned to tranquility, leaving behind a gentle glimmer like water. She suppressed a strange feeling of unease, as if unaware, her pink lips curled up, revealing a smile.

The next moment,

Chu Yuanqing walked to the couch and picked up the Sunflower from the arms of the mother and daughter, saying to her daughter:

“Little Shu, why don’t you go brush your teeth and wash your face? Breakfast is ready.”

The little girl looked longingly at the Lantern Elf, still wanting to play, but after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded and got up, running eagerly to brush her teeth.

Charlotte watched her daughter’s figure fade away, then turned to Honey Qing and, without any hesitation, asked directly through the Chain of Contracts:

“Do you think there is something wrong with the sunflower?”

Chu Yuanqing listened to the increasingly heavy and intense cracking sound in her soul. She looked at the mysterious little creature in her arms, its eyes wide and making soft “cheep” sounds. She furrowed her brows slightly, recalling the strange feeling from before, and replied:

“I don’t know. I just feel like I sensed the presence of the Disaster group, and it seems like time is a bit confused. But… maybe it’s just a feeling. Even if it’s not just a feeling, it may not be about the sunflower.”

In the past, even if the [Calamity God] hid with power, it could not escape the tests of time, said to have a terrifying instinct for predicting the future.

But now, that soul realm capable of splitting mountains and seas with a thought had crumbled after creating a new world. In her weakest moments, even thinking would slow down and become chaotic, less than an ordinary person.

Even though there was a lantern support restored to 19%, it could not maintain the most basic Perfection Realm.

As for the sharp intuition about Disaster, which approached the realm of concepts, it had not been forcibly worn away by the curse, but with memories gradually fading and the curse constantly interfering, it might not do much.

Now, Chu Yuanqing was like an old warrior who could not lift her sword, like the young hero after the end of a comic, no longer possessing the qualifications of being invincible, and unable to confidently trust her own judgment.

Moreover, the sunflower had no disaster aura, and its soul was extremely pure, just like Little Shu’s scent. It undoubtedly belonged to the daughter’s Lantern Elf; this could not be doubted.

And since it was a Lantern Elf, how could it possibly be related to a disaster beast?

So, that moment of intuition that was triggered seemed to foretell her increasingly weakened and unstable mental state.

Charlotte looked at Chu Yuanqing with concern, gave her a comforting hug, and, pressing against the sunflower, used the judgment of [Decorate Phantasm] to check. After arriving at a harmless conclusion, she replied:

“I trust your intuition; that brief warning cannot be false. Even if the sunflower is fine, there must be something unexpected hidden within Little Shu.”

This sentence was very restrained and vague.

However, Chu Yuanqing still understood. Both she and Charlotte had large gaps in their memories of the previous timeline, whether it was about the Calamity God, the nature of the Disaster group, or many other details and processes, much of it was blank.

And this came from the Corrective Force of the Sea of Truth. It may not have awareness, but it possessed a self-filtering mechanism; the more unfavorable the information was about the Calamity God, the deeper it was hidden.

The easiest sign to notice was that among the information pieced together by five people—herself, Liuli, Little Xuan, Miyuki, and Charlotte—they still couldn’t gather complete details about the thirteen Calamity Gods; most of it was repetitive.

Helldir, Youmir, King of Salt, Solar Calendar, Tenno-Gochu, Nergal, Khaos, Old Testament.

These eight Calamity Gods were all that were known.

It seemed like a lot, but their specific abilities and weaknesses were either very vague, completely forgotten, or contradictory when verified, effectively eliminating any informational advantage related to New Game Plus.

In summary, Charlotte meant that this warning was not without reason; they might have forgotten crucial information about their daughter in the corrections from the Sea of Truth.

This information was enough to be as important as the weaknesses of the Calamity Gods, or even more so, which was why it had been hidden so strongly.

Chu Yuanqing tried to remember the time around Little Shu’s birth, even the moments before, but no matter how hard she thought, all she could recall were vague impressions.

The only thing she could be sure of was that when her daughter was born, all thirteen Calamity Gods had been defeated, and the concept of the stars—the planets themselves and their surrounding galaxies—was crumbling due to the backlash from the Disaster group, entering a countdown to their extinction.

After that, Charlotte’s funeral was like a push that led to the end of the world’s timeline—the axis of time and causality—erasing all traces.

But…

Why did she give birth to Little Shu after all?

Chu Yuanqing knew that part of it was because Charlotte needed a reason to keep living; whether there were other reasons, maybe there were, maybe there weren’t.

But neither she nor Charlotte could remember.

Chu Yuanqing gently stroked the sunflower that was cuddling close to her and wagging its tail. Once her thoughts were settled, she replied using the Chain of Contracts:

“Even if it is just a possibility, we must still be careful when it comes to Little Shu. Let’s ask the child later if she has felt anything strange recently.”

“Also, I will ask Dream Weaver Rabbit if a Disaster event broke out in Sea City a few minutes ago. If the timing matches perfectly, it may just be my intuition acting up.”

Although theoretically, before the collapse of [Pure White], the thirteen [Calamity Gods] could not emerge from the embryo and could only curl up in the forbidden area, radiating their power in an extremely inefficient way.

But…

Theory is just theory. On the road to defeating the [Calamity Gods], everyone had faced too many crises beyond imagination, to the point that much of it was now a blur in memory. There were countless similar events.

On the contrary, Liuli wouldn’t have needed to go through so many cycles.

Moreover, how could I, who had forgotten even the powers of the [Calamity Gods], be sure that the other side didn’t have other tricks up their sleeve?

Chu Yuanqing felt a bit tired. She gradually began to feel overwhelmed and even started to doubt whether she could create the greatest value with her life as expected.

There was too little time.

Even with a six-month buffer period of the Ideal State, children like Xiaoxiao, who had practiced countless lives in the Tower of Mirrors, still did not grow enough to inherit the legacy.

In this way, how many people could qualify to carry the blessings from the first playthrough when Pure White collapsed?

“Daddy, I brushed my teeth!”

Her thoughts were interrupted.

Chu Wang Shu cheerfully walked back to the living room. She looked at her dad, who was playing with their fairy, picked up her phone, took a picture of the scene, and said proudly:

“Even though the sunflower is very cute, it shows its charm even more when Daddy holds it.”

Chu Yuanqing did not know that her cute daughter was secretly praising her cuteness. She gently put the sunflower on the ground, allowing it to run back to her daughter in a flash, saying:

“Don’t post it on Weibo yet; let’s eat together first.”

Upon hearing this, Chu Wang Shu obediently sat at the dining table. She first used her chopsticks to pick a bit of bacon and fed it to the sunflower sitting on her lap. Seeing it eat, she began to understand Sister Miyuki’s interest in feeding Daddy.

The little girl fed the sunflower for a while, then suddenly had a great idea and looked at her parents, saying:

“Sunflowers look a lot like the toys from cartoons. If I let it play ‘Red Light, Green Light’ with me and take a picture together, fans might think it’s just a toy!”

Charlotte nodded thoughtfully and agreed in a somewhat unreliable manner:

“That’s true! Posting the picture and asking fans to find the details could be a fun prank, right?”

“It should be really fun! Let me help Little Shu and the sunflower take pictures.”

The Pure White Witch looked calm as she took three sugar cubes, put them in Charlotte’s coffee cup, and stirred it while saying:

“When the Lantern Elf was first born, it was almost like a blank slate. Violet and Forget-Me-Not were taught by Dream Weaver as early education teachers.”

“These days when you go out to play, you can leave the sunflower at home. I will arrange for Dream Weaver to teach this little one.”

Chu Wang Shu quickly agreed without thinking much.

Although she had thought about going outside to play with the sunflower.

But after thinking carefully, just enjoying the time with Mom and Dad outside was not enough; there was no time to take care of the sunflower.

Besides, Forget-me-not and Violet were both very lovely, and the latter was even smarter and more reliable than Sister Little Yu, which showed how good the teacher from Dream Weaver was, so it was very safe to leave the sunflower with them.

After Chu Yuanqing finished arranging for a certain AI to observe, she stopped mentioning the sunflower and, as usual, talked about today’s plans for fun.

Charlotte also eagerly joined in—she really wanted to play—quickly listing many activities and confidently saying she could use time-space spells to teleport to other places in the Donghong Federation to have fun.

Chu Wang Shu immediately interrupted this topic; if the fun places were not limited to Sea City, she was afraid Mom would end up dragging Dad and her to Hokkaido to visit Sister Miyuki.

That just seemed really strange, no matter how one thought about it!

Half an hour later, the three of them finished their meal and got ready to go out.

Chu Wang Shu placed the sunflower on the sofa, then put the tablet containing Dream Weaver in front of her, giving a little lesson, enjoying her role as a little teacher, before starting the “online class.”

Chu Yuanqing looked at her lively daughter, her eyes soft and smiling. She was about to urge her to hurry and put on her shoes when suddenly her brow furrowed, her mind going blank as she felt a wave of sharp, phantom pain.

In the next moment, the Mercury Blood inside her boiled violently, like flowing magic energy particles, altering her fate in an instant. A shining emerald light burst forth, only to be pulled away in a flash.

Boom, boom, boom! A crack opened in the sky, revealing the Ideal Homeland filled with power and authority, awakening just in time. A great flood of magical energy fell, pouring into her body and restoring the strange emptiness of her magic.

Chu Yuanqing barely had time to think about why this was happening when a curse from the Sea of Truth seemed to sense something. It roared like thunder in her soul, shaking her violently and pulling her into a dreamlike state.

In a daze, snowflakes began to fall softly.

Everywhere she looked was a pure white, untouched by dust.

It was an invisible Disaster set upon the surface of the continent, carved from the concept of salt.

Its name was the King of Salt.

…

…

Gloria, Komo.

On the other side of Sea City, the morning symbolizes a new beginning, while here, the stars shine brightly, still covered by the night.

This old city, which looks out at the world and is not considered a second-tier economy, is filled with medieval buildings, much like Vienna in Austria, radiating a unique charm adorned with art and music.

The difference is that Komo is relatively traditional and quieter, with many castles still owned by noble families, and there are not many places for tourists to visit.

At the same time, there are more wandering artists here, and besides the central area, it is not very lively at night and is closer to the coast.

Tang Liuli remembers that her mother came to Komo years ago to study the local sculpture style when she met her father selling poems and paintings on the street.

In a way, she thinks Komo is somewhat similar to Dali, hiding not-so-beautiful things beneath a beautiful exterior.

The girl walked alone on the beach, warmed by the sunlight of the day, with her delicate, beautiful arches, ankles, and calves covered in fine white sand. Her light dress swayed in the sea breeze, and her emerald eyes looked out at the ocean.

On the beach, words of a poem written by Eiwas for his mother were drawn with sticks.

Tang Liuli quietly watched the rise and fall of the tide; she looked at the cold sea water that swallowed those words and memories, whispering:

“Dad, the poems you wrote when you were young sound so silly, like a cheerful little bird trapped in a tree cage.”

Tang Liuli once thought that her father’s bitter gaze and the poem “Farewell Letter” would help her let go, but blood ties and memories, like tangled threads, bound the past and present together, only slowly breaking apart when the sea swallowed the verses.

In the distance,

Thousand Faces wore an elegant suit and a top hat, his face hidden by a mask, smiling at the person before him. The hundred-faced dice in his hand had already been thrown, landing on a beautiful number that decided the outcome of the first move.

The Ideal State group successfully turned his followers into resources that were used up in advance, and even the PERSONA he had was reduced to just a few faces, leaving him with nothing.

But…

“My ‘daughter’, your value to this world is enough to pay off the debt and help me regain everything.”

But before Helldir’s power could activate, it forcibly cut off the connection between the Magical Girl and the lantern.

The Archbishop, who had narrowly escaped death and returned with great determination, suddenly turned around and gazed behind him. His eyes, always smiling and squinting as if looking down on everything, widened in horror as if he had witnessed something that defied reason.

“How is this possible…”